People all over the world have enjoyed relaxing at ocean and lakeside beaches and sandy river strands, probably since before the dawn of recorded history. The parent application Ser. No. 15/791,356, “Portable Sun Shade” defines terms such as beaches, uncompacted soils, and other natural or artificial surfaces where people like to relax in the sun, and those details and definitions will not be repeated here as to the extent that they have already been incorporated in this specification document by reference.
Although reclining upon naturally heated sands or artificial surfaces such as patios and poolside recreation areas can be extremely pleasant, the exposure to sunlight can also be much more severe than in other environments, which has created a market and an industry for producing portable sun shades.
Lightweight portable shades can act as sails and can develop large forces due to wind loading. Less thoughtfully designed products can be blown away in whole or in part, leaving the user the chore of a downwind trek to retrieve the scattered articles. It would be advantageous for a portable sunshade to include means of support capable of resisting wind gusts while adaptable for use not only in loose, uncompacted soils, but also on hard, flat surfaces and also in pools.
People also enjoy floating in a pool on a raft, or in a floating lounge chair, or by means of their body's own positive buoyancy, and often like to have a sun shade nearby while floating. A shade deployed in open water can be displaced by natural wave action, tidal flows, and wakes propagating from boats and vessels.
Shades designed for use in pools must address additional challenges. They must rest on the bottom of the pool without damaging the pool liner material, which is often only a thin vinyl membrane which can be easily pierced by sharp or abrasive objects. They must resist displacement or tipping over not only by wind gusts but also from wave action generated by other swimmers. Also, unlike when walking, running or clambering over ground, many pool users are less aware of their own motion and inertia in water. Combined with other pool users who may be floating adrift while asleep or nearly so, the risk of a pool users colliding with a sunshade deployed in a swimming pool is much higher than a shade deployed on a beach.
The market currently lacks a reasonably affordable solution for a portable, personal-use sunshade which combines all the benefits of: being easy to carry, set up, and take down, being easy to understand how its components are supposed to be assembled or adjusted, allowing a user to position the shade and also easily adjust or re-position the shade as the sun moves in the sky over time, being capable of supporting one or more shade membranes of effective sizes, able to resist wind forces applied to the one or more shades, able to stand on a hard surface without digging or anchoring means, and able to be used in a pool, that is, able to stand in moving or wavy water without tipping drifting away, and unlikely to damage a pool liner when set up in a swimming pool.